Have you heard the term megaphilanthropist? I hadn’t either until I read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article about what billionaire philanthropists are focusing their charitable efforts on, titled “Betting on Tomorrow.” These men and women have the vision to use their resources to tackle big problems, and to measure the effects of generosity. Ben Gose and Maria Di Mento, authors of …
What was Solomon’s legacy, both to the nation he ruled and down through history to us? I explore this topic in this post.
Legacy is not dependent upon having children. Legacy is just as important for those who are single and for those who are married without children. How can that be? Consider how the idea of legacy is often tied to “what you’ll leave behind.” But when we focus on what we leave behind only, I think we miss the point of legacy. …
I’ve heard it said many times now and in various ways, but the principle is the same: we should prepare our families to receive assets. Too many times, I see families who work hard—incredibly hard—to build a portfolio of assets. The majority of their waking hours and working years are in pursuit of building a portfolio. For what purpose? Only to …
Sometimes I hear from families that their legacy is messed up. Whether through children who’ve gone astray, broken marriages, or failed businesses—they say it is too much. In their minds, they have a ruined legacy. It’s irredeemable. But there’s a story worth repeating. The crowd in the desert wilderness was at it again. They were complaining. Whining. It all sounded …
It used to be that as a financial advisor you were doing great if you worked with your client, planned a good retirement for them and an inheritance for the children and maybe even the grandchildren. But those days are changing, giving rise to a new field of expertise: the legacy advisor. Consider the increase of ultra high net worth families …
A study on leaving a legacy found most people evaluate a life well lived in terms of loving relationships and social impact rather than money. Forbes contributor Richard Eisenberg summed up some of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch/Age Wave study’s key findings in an article, also mentioning Lyndsay Green’s book, The Well-Lived Life: Live With Purpose and Be Remembered. Green …
How well do nonprofits understand the poor they’re trying to help? And how well do they preserve dignity while offering that help? These issues are front and center in a recent article by Martin Morse Wooster in Philanthropy Daily. In “Back Row America: The Fascinating Work of Chris Arnade,” Wooster makes a simple point: to combat poverty, we need to …
Money’s a funny thing. Most people spend their lives wishing they had it as they toil away at their jobs. We worry about it in our off hours, and for some it’s a pleasant daydream to think about arriving. A few actually get it. They arrive. What if that were you? What would you do if your net worth was …
In the United States, we accept the current state of the nonprofit fundraising world—lots of nonprofit organizations and lots of fundraising requests. But it wasn’t always this way. In Martin Morse Wooster’s You Can Succeed at Protecting your Legacy, he points out that in 1900 most philanthropy was local. Major national charities generally didn’t exist. In 1904 when Clara Barton …
